Child labor in Egypt on the rise

Published July 18th, 2011 - 06:10 GMT

According to the head of the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the volume of child labor in Egypt is as high as 1,594,000.

According to Major General Abu Bakr Al-Gendy, head of the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the volume of child labor in Egypt is as high as 1,594,000. Labor includes work at levels classified between light and dangerous. There are 17 million children in Egypt between the ages of 5 and 17.

Children between the ages of 15 and 17 make up 46% of the total child labor market, with 4.87% of them giving their earnings to their parents.

Al-Gendy noted the percentage of girls in the child labor force reached 21%.

7.42% of child labor is concentrated in Upper Egypt’s countryside, while 8.4% is in Lower Egypt’s countryside. The concentration of working children, ages 12 to 14, increased by 8.3%, with 12 year olds as the smallest concentration at 23%.

120,000 children between the ages of 5-17 age group did not go to school, of which 5.5% were male and 5.49% were female.

487,000 children, 79% of which were male, left school to work. The survey indicates that the agriculture sector accounted for the largest share of child labor, at 62%.